B2B Social Media Listening

Abraham Ernesto September 4, 2016

Social Listening, if put in simple words, it's about looking at your competitors, their client, your customers and keeping a tab on both of your social networking stream.

It may sound familiar already, but does it work for B2B companies?

It’s about getting an ear out in the market and listening what people have to say about your brand as well as of your competitors.

The question is.. why not? Whenever a business' potential targets on social media, it is always a good idea to pay attention to them. 

Why Monitor Your Competitors on Social Media?

Why do you need to stay up to the speed of what your competitor are doing?
Why should I care about what social media users say about my brand?

You will get questions like this answered by the end of this article.

Let's dig in...

B2B social listening

Stand Out from the Crowd

When clients choose a brand, they usual pick the unique one. If you learn about different promotional activities with offerings of your competitor, you will learn about your weaknesses.

Try to be creative, do something new. Try to be different.

But the question is... how can my business find something creative, new, and different? Back to the main topic of this article... Social listening can help you.

You can "fetch" and process thousands of potential clients' thoughts widely spread throughout the world of social media. With these "free" ideas, you will be able to find what they want, what they need, and what they prefer.

But that's not all, you can also "spy" what your competitors have been doing. And by knowing that, you can shape the strategies that have never been tried by others.

Keep up with Industry Insights

This is social media monitoring companies try to do. They inform you about common and latest industry trends.

But first, you need to consider who your target audience(s) are and keep up to date with your competitors or any particular industry. You have to analyze what your competitor offers. Evaluate the buzz and it will help you understand the ins and out of the industry.

Learn about your competitor

Social media analysis like B2B Social Listening helps you to know the strength and weakness of your business' competitors. Learn about their shortcomings, benefit from it and make sure you don’t make those mistakes.

Learn what clients have to say about your competitors as it will help you to determine which types of marketing or product will help you.

Make yourself different from your competition, but there is nothing wrong in getting the idea from other business to make yourself successful.

Benefits of B2B Social Listening

There are many advantages of B2B Social Listening and to remain in the game, your company needs to step up its social game.

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Listen what the world has to say about you/your company

Listen to what your customers have to say, generate leads with it and it will improve your bond. B2B Social Listening helps you to control your reputation.

Build brand credibility by responding to questions as fast as you can. You can provide solutions to service problems while you learn about new business opportunities. Just make sure you are keeping up with the social streams of your clients.

Keep up with your customers and competitors

Your competitors are monitoring you out there, I can guarantee that. Therefore, it won’t bite you if you do the same. Keep track of your competitor’s social media presence. It helps you to learn about their issues, their products and the way they reach out their potential leads.

A question to answer: Who doesn't want to gain the knowledge of each of our competitor's distinct value proposition and new additions to their product?

No one I guess..?

You need to listen what their customers are saying. This will help you to get a real insight into their product development as well as new features.

Inspire yourself

Generating new ideas for product development, marketing strategies, or building a new business takes time, and sometimes frustration because of the lack of ideas become your day-to-day friend.

So why not get the ideas from all these social media streams that always work 24/7?

You can easily find tons of problems your prospects are experiencing, and by doing some basic research, you will be able to generate countless business ideas.

Bond with prospect and understand their needs

A customer of yours just shared something on LinkedIn. It is better for you if you reach out and see if they want to continue the discussion what you. It can be answering critics, feedbacks, or questions.

Every business' goal is to convert prospects into leads and leads into customers... Right?

The same principle applies to internet marketing. We find the traffic, they will be going through the marketing funnels we have designed, and eventually turn themselves into our leads.

And the thing is social media monitoring can help you to maximize the potential.

The easiest way is obviously to "spy" on our customers. But be sure to do research on relevant companies, why would a web development company spy on restaurants? Except if they indeed are targeting the same market.

Learn about the industry influencers

The industry leaders have loads of followers. Therefore, it will be ideal for you to connect with someone with such an approach. You have to subscribe to a public list. Search and make a list of influencers. These people share their thoughts and opinion on different products.

If you engage with them in the proper way, they can become your brand advocate. This means they will help you for marketing your products. Despite that, following these figures can help you get real insights about your industry.

Further reading:

Monitor keywords and their variations

Take them as pure news alerts where you need to keep up with where certain keywords are. You should use the same strategy with B2B Social Listening. Bear in check with general and niche keywords, which relate to your industry. You have to consider the fact that every word has its variations and different spellings. Keep track of them.

Make new connections, but also keep up with the old ones

Once you have turned your prospect into a customer, the job is still uncompleted. You need to keep your customers loyal to your brand, and this is where B2B Social Listening comes in real handy.

Social listening is not all about getting new clients; it is also meant to improve your relationship with the already existing ones. If you follow your customers online, you are strengthening your bond with them.

Come up with Better Products

This conclusion is what it boils down to; Your product may be great. But, it doesn’t mean you can’t improve it. By preparing your "ears" to hear what the public (both existing customers or potential leads) say about you or about their needs and wants, you will only get the benefits for your company.

In the end, it all means that you should improve what your business offers. And obviously, you will need inspirations and insights to get there, and this is what B2B Social Listening provides you.